What You Can Get
by modernxxmyth
Summary: Kate tells Sawyer the whole truth about why she came back to the island. Skate. Sawyer/Kate one-shot. Post-What Kate Does.


**A/N: **Skate one-shot. Post-What Kate Does. Spoilers for the episode.

**Disclaimer:** Lost, mine? Yeah. Right. /sarcasm

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**What You Can Get**

It had been three weeks since she'd last seen him. Three weeks since Kate had left Sawyer at the Dharma barracks, knowing he needed time on his own to grieve. Then she hadn't seen him for three weeks.

After seven days, she'd gone back to the Dharma barracks to check on him. She was getting concerned that something may have happened to him. You never did know on this island – the dangers popped up out of nowhere. When he was nowhere to be found, Kate spent the next several days searching for him across the island. But it had rained heavily before she'd realized he was missing, and his tracks had disappeared. She looked for him for quite awhile, but eventually Jack had convinced her to stop.

"You're making yourself sick, Kate. When was your last meal?" he asked.

Kate bit her lip, trying to remember. "Yesterday afternoon?"

Jack sighed. "Sit. Eat some boar. Eat a mango. Eat _something_."

She listened to him. She sat, and she ate, and she spent the night at camp. But she was gone searching for him again by the next morning. She stuck to saner patterns – stopping for food and water like a normal person, and heading back to camp most evenings.

But Kate never stopped searching.

It was evening, and Kate had just made it back to camp for dinner and rest when Sawyer stumbled out of the jungle three weeks after she'd last seen him.

His hair was a mess. He was no longer clean-shaven. She looked more like the Sawyer she knew before she left than she'd seen since she arrived. It looked like the island had done a number on him. He seemed exhausted.

Kate ran to him and pulled him into a tight hug, despite his protesting groans, because she simply couldn't help herself. She was just glad to see him alive. "You're okay," she breathed.

"Yeah, Freckles, I'm fine. Why are you actin' so concerned?"

"I went to the barracks two weeks ago to make sure you were doing okay," Kate admitted. "And you weren't there. I was…concerned."

Hurley snorted from a few feet away.

Kate shot him a look.

"What?' Hurley asked. "You were more than _concerned_. Jack had to drag you back to camp a few times to keep you from spending the nights in the jungle looking for him."

"That right?" Sawyer smirked.

Kate shot Hurley another look, and he retreated.

She sighed. "Yeah. I searched for you for a while. Wasn't really planning on stopping until you showed up…Where were you?"

"Let's walk, Kate. I've got something to tell you."

Kate raised her eyebrows curiously, but submitted. They walked along the beach side by side.

Sawyer spoke up, "Right after you left, I went into the jungle, and I found Claire."

Kate gasped.

Sawyer continued. "She's…different. She certainly ain't going back to take care of Aaron anytime soon."

"What happened to her?" Kate asked.

"Locke…or whoever the hell he is…he said something changed in her. I don't know. He seemed to think it was a good thing, but it didn't seem like such a good thing to me. She was a completely different person. Seemed kinda crazy."

"The sickness," Kate whispered.

"What's that now, Sassafras?"

"She must have been infected. We have a lot to tell you."

"_Obviously._ But, like I said, Claire's not going back to parenting anytime soon. Aaron was probably better off with you."

Kate winced.

Sawyer gave her a look that was meant as an apology. He never did like to say the words, "I'm sorry." Like he'd told her so long ago, before he'd even tried leaving on the raft, sorry didn't suit him.

"Well…he's with his grandmother. I guess that's the second best thing."

"Too bad you couldn't accomplish what you came for," Sawyer told her. "You gonna try and get off this hell-hole again now that you know it ain't happening?"

Kate shook her head. This was going to be a hard topic to bring up, but she knew she needed to. "You know how I told you that I came back here to find Claire? I did. Because she's Aaron's mother, and I wanted her to be able to take care of him like he deserves. I came back for Claire. But...she's not the only reason I came back."

She gave him a piercing look that made it quite obvious just what the other reason was.

"You talkin' bout little ol' me?" Sawyer asked. His words were light, but his tone was not.

Kate sighed, knowing there was a good chance this would not end well. "You know I am. I just thought you should know. I'll be around, James. When you want to talk."

She left his side and headed back to the main part of camp, grabbing some food. It was dinnertime, after all.

A week passed. And then another. And another. Kate and Sawyer still spent time together. They still chatted. But it was all surface level since Kate's confession, and she knew it must be because he didn't know what to do. He'd just lost Juliet a mere month before.

Four weeks after he came back from the jungle, he approached her. She was carrying a pack of fruit. She'd just been up in a tree, gathering fruit for the group. It had been easy to fall back into old island habits.

"Hey," said Sawyer.

"Hey," Kate smiled.

"So…you wanna walk?" he asked. He stumbled through the words in a nervous way that made Kate want to laugh.

She nodded in response, and they walked through the jungle, careful not to stray too far from camp.

Kate waited for him to speak. She suspected what it was about – the conversation they'd had four weeks earlier. When she'd admitted to him that Claire wasn't the only reason she'd come back to the island. That he had been a contributing factor. A big one.

"What you said after I came back," Sawyer began. "Did you mean it?"

"Of course I meant it, James. That's not something I would lie about."

Sawyer wanted to tell her he didn't know _what_ all she would lie about. From what he'd heard, the Oceanic 6 had created quite the façade. But he didn't.

"Hmm. Well…" Sawyer paused. "Well, right now, Freckles, all I wanted to say is that I'm glad you came back." He paused. "That's all for now."

Kate smiled. "Thanks."

For now, Kate decided, she would take what she could get.

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Hope you enjoyed. I liked writing this one quite a bit. Review, please!


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